


silvery

by TomBowline



Series: Tommy's OWOT2020 fills [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Era, Ficlet, Gen, Gothic Elements, M/M, OWOT2020, One Week of Terror, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline
Summary: It was a scene most unnatural.Fill for day 3 of One Week of Terror: "moonlight" + "weird science"!
Relationships: Henry Collins & Harry D. S. Goodsir
Series: Tommy's OWOT2020 fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978441
Kudos: 14
Collections: One Week of Terror 2020





	silvery

**Author's Note:**

> quick note: this takes place before “ship-killer” and “sleepeth”.

When Henry awoke, he was not sure what had roused him. Could it be the moonlight streaming in his window? But surely, he had slept through that before. The chill of the room? No, he was warm in bed under his layers of wool. Then what had it been?

He lay awake for a long while, feeling oddly peaceful despite his interrupted slumber, before he had his answer. It was barely anything at first, just a slight metallic hum like a coin going ‘round a tin bucket, but within a minute it had grown so loud as to fairly shake the floorboards. It was unearthly, sitting there bathed in the moonlight listening to this strange song. It made him uneasy.

It made him curious.

With a brass candle-dish in one hand and an eye on keen watch for any movement, he shuffled down the tiny winding staircase in his sock-feet, following the sound. It fell silent at one point, leaving Henry in the corridor to breathe over-loudly and jump at shadows, but within a minute it began again. It was coming, he was almost certain, from Dr Goodsir’s laboratory.

As the sound died away once more, he crept across the main room to the open laboratory door and peered inside. What he saw there sent long fingers of disquiet tracing up his back.

It was a scene most unnatural. The windows were open to let a chill breeze invade the room, and the curtains were thrown wide, bathing all in the eerie day-bright glow of moonlight. Not a candle nor a lamp was lit; the only light came from the full moon that shone high and pale through the wide windows. Instruments of metal and glass, books with arcane titles in other alphabets, trays full of herbs and stones and glistening things - all were strewn carelessly about the scarred wooden table, looking almost as if the wind had carried them there. From a high shelf Henry saw the glittering eyes of a tank of crabs, scuttling over one another heedlessly as they seemed to stare straight at him. And in the middle of it all, standing at the head of the table, turned just enough to the side that he would not spot Henry— was Dr Goodsir.

He had a look about him that verged on mania; his dark hair was wild and backlit by the sickly moonlight, his lips bitten, his stained apron thrown on overtop of his nightshirt and long underwear. He was hunched over the table, holding up a vial of something green to the light over a pair of larger bottles. His hands shook minutely as he gazed at the vial, muttering to himself and tilting it this way and that. With an air of sinister finality, he unstoppered it and began to pour—

Henry, mesmerized by this unsettling tableau, let his hand loosen on the candle-dish; it dropped to the clay tiles with a clatter.

Dr Goodsir jumped and turned about hastily. “Oh,” he gasped, “Mr Collins! I didn’t see you approach. Have I woken you?”

He was so obviously carefree, so much his usual self despite the lateness of the hour and the strangeness of the scene, that Henry felt immediately eased. “Don’t worry,” he replied with a shrug. “I only heard the noise.”

“Oh—” The doctor looked embarrassed now. “Yes. Well. I often find myself sleepless, and I thought I ought to make use of the time...I am sorry. Would you like to come in?” Asked with a pained smile, as if he were used to his work being met with disinterest. 

Henry didn’t figure on being able to get back to sleep tonight no matter what, and the array on the table - far from lessening his interest - had only made him more curious as to the doctor’s occupations. He ducked through the doorway and sidled up alongside Goodsir, peering down at the moonlit instruments and strangely colored bottles. “Will you show me how you make that sound, then?”

“Ah! Yes, well. The sound is really a side effect, I am sorry it woke you. The important thing is the chemicals that react to  _ make _ the sound. You see...” Henry watched the doctor’s face light up with that same manic energy as he lifted vials and jars in his soft nimble hands, turned his pale wrist up to the moonlight to show Henry the color of the resultant mixture and its staining effect on human skin, explained in his quiet babbling-brook of a voice how this would move him towards aims which Henry could not quite grasp. As the room filled once again with that strange song, Henry could not help feeling that for all its sleeplessness this was quite a fine night.


End file.
